Noob question - how to create a new windows form as part of a plugin?

I am writing a plugin for a C# application and would like to add a dialog window. I have no control over the application, rather, the application loads plugins dynamically using reflection. I am a newbie with windows forms (this is a forms application) but would like to have a dialog window come up to control my plugin. How can I accomplish this?

If I just add a windows form to my application via visual studio no form appears. Application.Run has presumably already been called by the main application. I am almost completely new to forms.

How can I start the form with with my plugin (the plugin has a method that is called when it is started) and make it active?

Edit: I should clarify, the main application application window wil开发者_如何学Gol not respond (even to minimize or maximize the window) when a plugin is running, so presumably whatever thread is devoted to handling windows messages is used to run the plugin and is, temporarily, not handling any windows messages. Thus my form needs its own thread handling windows messages.

You will need to initialize your code from whatever method the plugin architecture defined as the entry point (where the application will call your plugin).

To show a form, you can call the Show method on it.

// In a method that the plugin framework calls 
myPluginForm.Show();

The application that loads your plugin should have some facility to load a window. Check the API documentation. Also, do you know if there are other plugins that can create arbitrary new windows? Usually, the host application can allow the plugin to create certain predefined (by the host) types of windows (such as config, load a file, etc...).

It might also be possible to programmaticaly create a new form and then load it. See here for an example: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.form.aspx and look for the "examples" section.